


Three times Captain Jack Harkness was part of the Doctor's family

by wanderingstoryteller



Series: No one ever said this life would be simple [16]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-24 14:36:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17706116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingstoryteller/pseuds/wanderingstoryteller
Summary: In a series of three adventures the Doctor learns who Shiva's nanny was, why Yaz is so sensitive to alpha and omega pheromones, and who the Pleiades have found to watch their children.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still working on Behind Stone Walls, I had this short piece more or less ready to go so when I finished the edits thought I would go ahead and post. Enjoy.

When the Doctor opened the door to find Missy and Shiva waiting there was no trunk.

“Shiva!” The Doctor threw her arms open wide. 

Shiva just looked at her funny. She still wasn’t a hugger unless she was very upset about something. 

Missy just smirked, “I’m not actually dumping her on you this time. She keeps complaining that she misses you so I said she could visit you for an afternoon.”

“I do have a phone you know,” said the Doctor, “You could always, I don’t know, call ahead and let me know you were bringing her. What if I was in the middle of a dangerous adventure?”

“Then you’d take her along. She loves those,” said Missy. “Anyway, have fun, go save crippled orphan puppies or whatever it is you two do to bond.” With a wave of her hand she darted back into her TARDIS and was gone. 

Shiva considered the departed red TARDIS and the beaming Doctor. “Please tell me were not actually rescuing puppies.”

“Nah, wanna go see a star explode?”

“Totally.”

After watching a very satisfactory supernova they popped over to the nearest intergalactic space station for lunch. The Doctor wasn’t sure what it was about big cavernous metal rooms that so inspired people to set up little brightly colored shanghai esc food stalls, but she’d seen it repeatedly across the universe. Pretty much everywhere she’d ever been had also had some form of noodles, meat on a stick, and steamed buns.  

None of the companions could decide what they wanted to eat so they bought a bunch of stuff and dumped it all on one of the big plastic tables to share. Shiva caught sight of a rolling cart with sweet rolls and darted off in pursuit. She never reached it. 

Someone in a dark coat stepped out of the crowd and yanked the slender girl off her feet. The Doctor was in motion before she’d even completed a thought, sonic in hand. She crossed the great cafeteria hall in a a few bounding steps, Yaz and Ryan and her heels.

“Let her go!” 

She jammed the sonic against the strangers back, “Put her down or I will drop you like a brick.”

“Mom, it’s okay. I know him.” 

It occurred to the Doctor that she may well have mistaken an enthusiastic hug for an abduction attempt. 

The man set down the red haired girl carefully on her feet and turned around revealing a very familiar face. “Nice to meet you I’m…” 

“Captain Jack Harkness,” said the Doctor with a soft smile. “It’s so good to see you again.”

Jack’s eyes got wide as he sniffed the air. Humans from his time period, especially his particular variant had a very good sense of smell. He’d said once that the Doctor’s scent didn’t change that much when she regenerated. 

“Doctor,” he spoke it almost like a prayer.

“Same name, new face.”

The force of the hug nearly knocked the breath out of her. Once they’d extricated themselves the Doctor asked. 

“How is it your know my daughter?”

Shiva giggle. “Jack was my nanny until he escaped about a  year ago.”

“I didn’t escape, well I did but I told you I was going.”

“Mom was so pissed. You should have seen her face. She totally guessed that you’d left me a way to contact you if I needed you but I wouldn’t tell her what it was.”

Yaz nudged the Doctor, “This seems like it is going to be a long story. Come eat before the food gets cold.” 

The moment Jack saw her something in his face changed. He half opened his mouth and then closed it just as quickly. He turned his head away as if he were trying not to stare. Yaz wondered if he knew an older version of herself or something. She’d been traveling with the Doctor long enough to know when to let things go. They all returned to the table where Graham had wisely been guarding their feast. A small flock off flying kangaroo rat like animals that were the stations equivalent of pigeons had started to circle. 

Over noodles and dumplings Jack explained things. “After the whole Miracle Day incident there really wasn’t much left for me on earth, not that there was before, not after Ianto died. I got Gwen to take over Torchwood before I left and used my wrist strap to go traveling. 

“One moment I was drinking something out of a coconut at the edge of the galaxy and then the next a crazy female version of the Master snatched me and imprisoned me on her TARDIS. She shoved a baby in my arms and said that if I couldn't get her to stop crying she’d kill me. Fortunately I’m pretty good with babies.”

The Doctor blinked, “Wait, Missy really trusted you to watch Shiva? She hates you. She locked you up in the boiler room of the Valiant for a whole year she was so scared of you.”

Jack shrugged, “The way she explained it, she wanted a nanny who was willing to die to protect her child, and could actually do it more than once. She told me Shiva was yours from the start, she knew that alone would mean I’d do anything to keep her safe.”

“And he did.” Said Shiva.  “Jack was around more than Mom half the time. He chased off all my night terrors, the imagined and the real. Mom got me tutors for all the boring serious stuff but Jack taught me how to dance and how to properly wear a swishy coat.”

“You don’t wear a swishy coat,” said Ryan motioning at Shiva’s patch covered jean jacket.

She pouted a bit, “well he tried to teach me. I still haven’t perfected it yet.”

“You’ll get it eventually,” said Jack reassuringly. “We just haven’t found you the right coat yet.”

“Nothing wrong with non swishy coats,” protested Graham. “There is a lot to be said for a good leather jacket. Mine’s a lot more weather proof than that white thing you wear.”

“Leather jackets can be very cool,” said the Doctor. “I wore one a couple regenerations ago. I do love a good swishy coat though, also capes but I haven’t worn one of those in ages.”

Yaz rather hoped that those remained a thing of the past, like fezzes. The Doctor had been so enamored of the fez that the kerblam man had delivered that she’d started to wear it regularly. For the sake of the survival of their sex life Yaz had been forced to quietly steal it and chuck it out the door of the TARDIS while they were in the vortex. She could have sworn the TARDIS approved. 

Shiva snatched a dumpling form Ryan’s plate. For half a second he looked like he’d fight her for it and then decided that he wasn’t the sort of man who fought a girl over food and let it go. Shiva popped the whole thing in her mouth and had to finish chewing and swallowing before she could talk again. 

“Jack also totally told me all about you Mom. It’s funny, just like Mom he always made you sound like an odd combination of an utter lunatic and a demigod.”

“She kind of is, the lunatic bit at least,” said Yaz fondly. “I like her anyway.”

Something even odder passed over Jack’s face when she said that. He looked at her, her looked at the Doctor and then looked away. 

Was he jealous? Yaz knew that the Doctor had lived more than long enough to collect a fair number of lovers. She’d even once briefly mentioned Jack in passing, but she hadn’t said he was a lover. That didn’t mean he hadn’t been though. She’d have to ask later. 

They talked for a time when the meal was done. At last the hour began to grow late. 

“Shiva, we should probably get you back to your mom,” the Doctor admitted. 

They all stood up and Jack hugged Shiva again before they headed off. 

“You still have the number?”

“Of course.”

“If you ever need me just call it and I’ll be there at once.”

“With that rubbish vortex manipulator that makes you puke half the time?”

“Yea, that’s how much I care about you kid.”

“Be safe Jack.”

“You too.”

When the Doctor took Shiva back to Missy she really wanted to have it out with her. She’d kidnapped her former companion, this time for nearly a decade and a half. Then again, what Missy had done also meant that their daughter grew up with Jack to protect her. That was a hard thing to object to. She said nothing about Jack to Missy and hoped for the best. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yaz learns that her mom is apparently much more of a badass than she ever realized.

Yaz knew something was up the moment she stepped into her apartment. Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table with her serious face and a cup of cooling coffee in front of herself. Her mother had never been a tea drinker, in spite of where they lived.

“Make a cup of something and sit down.” There was no room for argument in her tone.

In order to buy time, Yaz boiled water, found a tea bag, seeped the teabag and then added milk and sugar.

Three minutes later her mother looked as serious as she had when she first came in.

“Your daughters came to visit me this morning.” Her mother looked her dead in the eyes.

“My daughters?”

“Two little twin girls, about seven I think. They looked so much like you Yaz.”

“Ah.”

“You can’t have daughters that age. I’d have noticed if you were pregnant at twelve.”

“Would you believe me if I said time travel was involved and they won’t even be conceived for about ten years.”

“Actually yes,” her mother sounded oddly relieved. “I did wonder why they asked why I didn’t have any grey hair yet. They also seemed convinced that I knew how to make snickerdoodle cookies and I don’t.”

They let that statement hang in the air for a moment. Yaz half hoped her mum would just let things go, she didn’t.

“That blond woman you hang out with, the Doctor, came to fetch them, they called her mom. She looked a little bit older too, more lines about the eyes and such. She apologized a lot, said timelines had become crossed, grabbed both girls and fled before I could question her.”  

“I see.”

“So you and the Doctor are a thing then, or at least you will be at some point?”

Yaz’s skin flushed. “We’re dating, also sort of traveling through time and space together.”

“Thought so,” she sounded oddly pleased, as if she’d solved a puzzle. “I rather like her. She handled the whole giant spider incident very well. She’s a human from the future right?”

“Not exactly. She’s sort of a very human like alien who time travels, it’s a long story.” While she and her mother had talked about a lot of awkward and personal things over the years Yaz did not feel up to explaining Time Lords or alphas at the moment. She was certainly never going to explain exactly how the Doctor and her had been able to make twins.

“You will have to tell me that story someday.” There wasn’t a lot of room for question in her mom’s voice.

“You seem to be handling this all very well,” said Yaz.

“We did face down giant spiders together a couple months ago. To be honest darling, the whole concept of time travel and such isn’t really new to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wait a moment.” She stood up and left the room. A moment later she came back with a shoe box and set it on the table. “It’s got to do with your father.”

Yaz flinched, “We’ve talked about that before mom. I know I was born before you met Dad. It doesn’t...it really doesn’t matter to me. Dad is my dad.”

“I know sweetheart,” her mom reached across the table to touch the side of her face gently.“The things is, when I told you that I wasn’t really sure who your father was or how to contact him, that was a lie.”

“What?”

“It was to protect you. Please, just listen to the whole story first.”

“Okay Mom.”

Now that she had her attention, her mom seemed to barely know where to start. She fidgeted for a moment then began, “I got my business degree at Cardiff University. I couldn’t get into a business school in London and I just wanted to get as far from Sheffield as I could. Once I had my degree I ended up sticking around the city working at a small company there afterwards. One day as I was walking back to my flat a truly bizarre grey faced creature in a boiler suit crawled out of a sewer grate and attacked me. I was able to beat it off with my purse until a man in a long blue coat showed up and chased it off with some sort of mace.

“I had a bad bite on my arm and was more than a little bit stunned, so he took me back to an odd sort of underground base. While he patched up my arm we got to talking and he ended up mentioning that the organization had lost their office manager and really needed a new one. I said I had a business degree and he hired me on the spot. Looking back I think either he thought I was cute or was just impressed with how well I handled the weevil.

“The organization was called Torchwood and they protected earth from everything that came through a trans dimensional rift in cardiff. I only worked there for a year but it was one of the most incredible experiences in my life. I saw things you wouldn’t believe, or maybe you would. Of course, I ended up getting involved with the director, Captain Jack Harkness.”

“Oh my god, you can’t be serious. There is no way that Shiva’s nanny is my biological father.”

Her mother blinked. “What’s Shiva?”

“Another long story, I’ve totally met Captain Jack though.”

“Did he...did he say anything to you?”

“No.”

“He kept his word then. That man has a lot of faults but that isn’t one of them.”

She fished in the shoebox until she found an old polaroid and put it on the table. It was of a much younger version of Yaz’s mother wearing a smart business suit leaning against an unchanged Captain Jack.

“He said he was from a future earth. He even had a device on his wrist he said could let him jump around in time but was too dangerous to use casually. He was also a terribly, terribly charming man. Not bad on the eyes either.”

“Mom.”

“I was young once too dear.”

“Anway, I got pregnant. I was even on the pill but I either it just failed normally or being exposed to so much rift energy did something. I told him and we were happy for about a week. Then things went terribly, terribly wrong. A future serial killer came from the rift, we stopped her eventually but not before the entire team was killed. That woman, no that monster…” She breath had suddenly gone shallow and there was old fear in her eyes.

Yaz reached across the table to take her mother’s hand. “I’m here Mom, you are safe.”

Her mother closed her eyes, slowly focusing on slowing her breath. “She didn’t kill me like the others once she realized I was pregnant. She said she was going to keep me alive until you were born and then steal you. In the end Jack saved me and we put down that woman like the mad dog she was. After that I couldn’t stay in Torchwood or in Cardiff. I knew it was just a matter of time before something else horrible came through the rift. None of Jack’s teams had ever lasted long. I didn’t just have my own life to think about anymore.

“I went back to the most dull and safe place I could think of and moved back in with your grandmother Sheffield. Jack showed up the day you were born. I thought, at least I did when he first held you, that maybe he and I had a future after all. I loved him so much. Then some kind of flying eldritch horror that had been secretly hunting him burst through the hospital room window. Once we had dealt with it, I told him I could never have him around you, not when trouble followed him like a shadow. He respected that and he left. I never heard from him again directly but he paid child support until you turned eighteen. I still send him your pictures.”

Yaz felt deeply and strangely sad. She struggled for words. “And Dad, I thought you loved him.”

He mother looked up, “I do, probably more than I ever did love Captain Jack. Your dad is a rubbish cook and sometimes brings trash home but he has a kind heart and a good sense of humor. He really sees me when he looks at me and he truly listens when I speak and for that he is the love of my life. If I had never left Jack, then I would have never met your father and my life would have been much the poorer for it.”

She’d never heard her mom speak that eloquently about anything, much less her dad.

“I thought Dad drove you crazy half the time.”

“He does. That how most marriages work.”

Yaz had to stifle a giggle.

“You’ll figure that out when you get around to marrying your time traveler, which I assume you do at some point before or after having twins.”

“Um…”

Yaz’s mother’s eyes narrowed a bit but she let it go. “Anyway, darling. What I’m trying to tell you is that I understand that the world is a lot bigger than Sheffield and I also know how dangerous it is. I tried to keep you safe as long as I could but you are a grown woman now and have to make your own decisions.”

“Is it alright if I contact Captain Jack?”

“If you want to, just don’t let him talk you into joining Torchwood. I don’t know exactly why but I feel like you might be better off running around in a flying police box than under a fountain in Cardiff.”

“Sure thing Mom.”

“Alright, hug me and then go collect the clean clothes I’m sure you came from.”

“If I leave my dirty clothes in the hamper will you wash them?”

“Do I look like your maid?”

“Right, I’ll do some laundry before I go then.”

She hugged her mom and set about getting ready to go back to the TARDIS.

  


In some, small quiet way, the Doctor was almost disappointed that the cause of Yaz’s unusually strong ability to scent pheromones was that half her genes were from the fifty-first century. It was just such a mundane answer.

Yaz’s sensitivity to heats and ruts was just as easily explained. While her genetic father’s human variant didn’t yet half alpha/beta/omega dynamics it was only a few generations from the starting to emerge. Jack’s people would go on to found Tyco.

She was also slightly surprised that Yaz had never mentioned that her dad was not her blood father. Yaz had just shrugged and said it wasn’t really a big deal. She’d been a toddler when he married her mother so she couldn't remember a time without him. Her mother hadn’t even told her the truth of it until she was a teenager.

The Doctor supposed that even if Yaz had mentioned it before, she’d have still just assumed that Yaz’s biological father was just some other twenty-first century human, so they wouldn’t have solved the great mystery of her sense of smell any sooner.

Yaz said she wanted to meet Captain Jack Harkness. The Doctor asked her to give her a chance to go talk to him first and Yaz agreed.

 

Jack was really just trying to have a quiet drink at an out of the way space station when a blond woman noisily thumped down onto the bar stool next to him.

“Doctor,” even after so much time it was impossible to keep the longing from his voice.

“Why didn’t you tell me she was your daughter?”

“I’ve got a lot of daughters and sons. I’ve been around a long time. I’m pretty sure you’ve met some of my descendants and just not realized it.”

“You know which one I mean.”

“Yasmine Khan.”

“World’s End Station was the first time I ever met her in person since she was a newborn.” There was so much pain in his words.

“You still knew her when you saw her.”

“Her mother sends me pictures.”

“But you never approached her. “

“I promised  Najia. I had to. Her entire team at Torchwood was murdered by a time hopping serial killer, she nearly was. She ran away and I was enough of a bastard to try and follow her. I found her in Sheffield a few hours after she’d given birth our daughter. Najia’s mother tried to keep me out of the hospital room but I’m a charming bastard and I got her to let me in. I held my daughter for less than a minute before some goddamn interdimensional monster, that had been secretly hunting me, made itself know. I got rid of it but Najia never forgave me for that. I can’t blame her.”

The bartender brought them both a shot of something clear and strong. Jack threw his back. The Doctor sipped hers, scrunched up her nose, and then set it back down.

Jack stared at his empty glass, “Do you know what it is like to watch a child of yours grow up in photographs. To want to see her, to hold her again so desperately but to know that if you ever go near her you’ll just bring danger.”

“I...not exactly. This regeneration I sired two I never learned about until they were half grown. That was painful enough. I was more careful after that.”

Jack took the Doctor’s barely touched drink and threw it back himself. “I love you Doctor but you really don’t understand. I’m not fit to be a father or a grandfather to anyone. I murdered my own grandson.”

“What?”

“It was to protect all the children of earth, my grandson was the only child close enough and he’d have died with all of them if I hadn’t, but I still did it. I willingly killed my daughter’s son.”

“Jack.”

“No, I am a monster in a way you will never be. You would have found another way. You always did when we were together. It’s just who you are and who I’m not. Yasmine’s mother was right to tell me to fuck off. When I saw Jasmine on that station she was beautiful and whole and well. I can’t risk destroying that.”

“She’s your daughter. She said she wants to meet you.”

“I don’t deserve to.”

“It’s what she wants.”

The Doctor waved at the bartender again and this time drank her own glass rather than let Jack take it.

“I didn’t kill my son, but I let him sacrifice himself.”

“You had a son?” Jack’s head jerked to look at the Doctor.

“Many many human lifetimes ago. He was brave and kind and I’ve spent every regeneration since trying to be half the man he was.”

“What happened.”

“He died holding the arch of light, protecting earth and his wife and his unborn daughter against the Daleks. I fought at his side, but I failed him. He fell and all I could do was end the battle and keep everything he loved safe. I have defended the earth ever since in his honor.

“For a very brief time I was blessed enough to travel with his daughter, my granddaughter, Susan. She was brilliant and wonderful and perfect. She lived a good and full and long life. I made sure of that. I found her before the end and told her she was going to regenerate. I thought she would. She believed me and died without fear but instead of becoming suffused with light she went cold in my arms. I still don’t know why she couldn’t, sometimes half Time Lords can’t. None of her children or grandchildren could ever regenerate, none of them. Sometimes her descendants still have her eyes or her smile, all of them have her courage.”

Jack didn’t know what to say. Her turned his empty shot glass on the table.

The Doctor did the same.

There wasn’t really any point getting another drink, some griefs are too deep for even time to mend much less liquor.

“Do you love her?”

“Huh?”

“Yasmine.”

“Of course.”

“You’ll keep her safe?”

“For every mortal breath she takes. My future self told me that Yaz lives until ninety-two. Then her heart fails her in the middle of an adventure. One moment she’s stepping from the Tardis to see a sunrise and then she’s collapsed and gone. I’m not sure if I should be grateful to know how much time she and I have or resent that knowing makes me count the days. I can jump ahead and back in time but I can’t make it pass any slower when I’m living it and I dare not miss a moment with her.”

Jack tilted his head back and considered the stained ceiling of the space station bar. “I met your daughters, my granddaughters once. They were fearless, brilliant women. They saved me from a Guihi Bog Monster. Minerva was near the end of her first life she’d gone so grey and frail. Diana had just regenerated for the first time and her eyes were the same blue as yours were when we first met.”

“That sounds like them.”

“Have they been born yet? Do I have granddaughters yet in your time?”

“Yaz is barely twenty, we won’t have the girls for another decade.”

“When her and your daughters are born can I come see them?”

“Come see your daughter now and ask her yourself when the time comes.”

“I don’t know her.”

“Duh, that’s why she wants to meet you.”

“She doesn’t need me. She’s got a dad doesn’t she? I know her mother married some handsome accountant bloke from her mosque in Sheffield.”

“She does and he’s clearly a very good dad. He gets on her nerves properly and everything. She’s not looking to replace him, she’s just curious about you. She has some questions to ask you about her sense of smell and such.”

“I guess I can do that.”

“Good, I’ll let her know.”

There wasn’t a lot to say after that, at least for a bit. They drank another round, this time with a toast to Diana and Minerva.

“Does this make me your father in law or something?”

“Nah, she and I never marry, at least we don’t before the girls are born as far as I know.”

“Wait, you knock up my daughter with twins and you don’t marry her?”

“Apparently she never asks.”

“And you don’t either?”

“Always been a bit afraid to. She might say no. I know when I’m out of my league and just lucky.”

“I’m still totally calling myself your father in law,” he sounded far too amused for his own good.

The Doctor made a face, “Considering our past that is very, very weird.”

Jack gave her a smile as bright and seductive as he had the first time they met, “Does this mean you’ve lost all interest in my immense charms? Are you free to still take other lovers? You were never the monogamous sort when I knew you.”

“Bit complicated.”

“You were never were anything but complicated.” Jack didn’t reach for her but the ache was clear in his voice.

The Doctor shook her head, “this is going to kill your pride but as handsome as you are, I I’m not attracted to you this time around.”

“Oh?” Jack had lived long enough to be almost immune to the sting of rejection, although not completely.

“Don’t take it personally. As far as I can tell, I’m not sexually interested in males this regeneration.” She blushed slightly. “It’s been even stranger for me than being female. I’ve always been bisexual for every regeneration, except for that one where I was asexual.”

“Is that normal for Time Lords?”

The Doctor shrugged, “More or less, nearly all have a couple regenerations that vary from the others. It’s most often at the end, and I’m now past what should have been the final death for one of my kind.”

Jack held up his glass. “To you and I then, two old farts who death won’t take.”

The Doctor smile and it made the edges of her eyes crinkle in a wonderful way. “To two old idiots. May we we keep making fools of ourselves.”

And they drank to that.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor finds out who has been watching her grandchildren

The Doctor, Missy, Shiva and Yaz were having a “family” dinner, well more a picnic really, when a red phone box TARDIs appeared in the alpine meadow in which they were sitting.

In an attempt better co-parent, or at least show their daughter they could be in the same place for five minutes without killing each other, the two Time Ladies had been sharing a meal with her every couple months.

Yaz had started attending more as a buffer than anything else. While Shiva still sometimes called her her evil stepmother, they’d been getting along better lately. Shiva had asked Yaz to be part of the meals and very quickly Yaz realized it was because the two adult Time Ladies fought less when they had a bigger audience. The poor teenager was rapidly realizing why her mothers were not together.

The meals were still kind of nice though. When Missy or the Doctor were in a better mood sometimes one or both of them would tell stories about their shared past.

“So then he came rushing out of his TARDIS, cape fluttering. It took the longest time for him to realize why everyone was just staring. Finally his companion, that Sarah Jane woman, told him, “Doctor you’ve forgotten your pants again.” I was laughing so hard I completely forgot to zap anyone with the death ray I had.”

Shiva dissolved into giggles.

Yaz found herself unable to not collapse with laughter where she was sitting on the picnic blanket. “That still happens sometimes.”

“I don’t wear a cape anymore thank you very much,” huffed the Doctor.  

“You have run out of the TARDIS in just your coat more than once though.”

“Only in emergencies.”

“Last time you did it because you heard an icecream truck.”

“It was an ice cream emergency.”

It was at that moment that the older version of Missy’s TARDIS thumped down beside her considerably newer one.

A moment later Captain Jack Harkness poked his head out. He had a baby in a sling, a dark toddler clinging to his leg, and a brunette little girl of about six hiding behind him.

The moment his eyes alighted on Missy he made a strangled sound and tried to duck back into the TARDIS. Missy had sensed the baby though and her eyes grew huge.

She was on her feet in an instant and moving far too quickly for a woman wearing as restrictive a skirt she was. She caught the door with her umbrella.

“No you don’t freak. Let me see that baby.”

Jack was rapidly backing up towards the consul, trying to keep the two mobile children behind himself. “Sorry, wrong point in the timeline.”

“Don’t make me kill you again.”

“Missy!” snapped the Doctor who had followed them into the TARDIS. “Stop threatening him.”  

“Yes,” agreed Shiva. “You promised me you wouldn’t hurt him again.” The young Time Lady quickly put herself between her birth mother and her former nanny.

Missy crossed her arms and looked annoyed. “I just wanted to see the baby. You sense it too don’t you Doctor?”

“Yes.” then she looked to Jack questioning. “Is she…?”

“Shiva, Mina and Lucy’s baby. I’m watching her and her others for the Pleiades while they save a small planet from a tribble infestation.”

The Doctor’s smile was a little terrifying. She nearly bumped the teenage Shiva out of the way in her rush to get to Jack and the baby.

“Can...can I hold her?”

Very gently Jack lifted the tiny infant from her sling and slipped her into her grandmother’s arms. Instantly the infant began to glow softly.

“Hello you beautiful, brilliant, wonderful, perfect, little thing.”  

Missy moved to the Doctor’s side to get a good look. “Her eyes are simply huge and such a wonderfully shade of purple.”

“She must get that from Mina and Lucy.”

Shiva had observed the entire affair with a dazed and slightly horrified look on her face. “I have a baby? A vampire baby?”

“You totally end marry two vampire chicks. I was in the wedding party,” Yaz couldn’t resist. “Also apparently you date a dragon at some point and she’s a total jerk.”

Shiva looked at her very doubtfuly.

Missy was still enraptured by the baby “Let me hold her.”

Hesitantly the Doctor eased their granddaughter into her other grandmother’s arms. The baby kept glowing and began to fidget. Missy played with her tiny hands.

“Careful,” warned Jack. “She bites.”

“Bites?”

As if on cue the baby yawned, showing two razor sharp feeding fangs. She bit down on the fleshy part of Missy’s hand.

Missy flinched slightly and then smiled maniacally. “Oh I’m so proud. Who’s my vicious little blood sucker.”

“I’ll go get a bottle.” said Jack resignedly. Doctor can you watch these two?” He motioned at the two other children. The Doctor knelt down to toddler level to become better acquainted. She recognized Margarite, Misca and Dina’s daughter, even if Marguerite had only been an infant last time she saw her. The toddler clearly knew her grandmother's older self because she happily climbed into her arms, babbling something that sounded a lot like “Gramgram.”  

The Doctor sat cross legged with one child in her lap. The other girl watched her with big wary brown eyes. There was an edge of learned caution and even fear in them. The Doctor could sense that she wasn’t one of her descendants or a Time Lord.

“Who are you darling?”

“Number Seven-Two-Seven-Nine of the Gamma Zeta Line.”

“Do you have a nickname?”

The little girl chewed on her lip,  “Mama Jenny and Mama Eve call me Sept.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you Sept,” said the Doctor.

The child was still eyeing her distrustfully, “You look like grandma but your not grandma.”

“I’m an earlier version than the one you know.”

“Oh. Do you have any curly wurlies?  

“Afraid not but I’ve got Jelly Babies.” She fished a small paper bag from her coat pocket and offered it to the child.

She slowly edged close enough to snatch a few and then retreated back to the safety of the TARDIS control console. Both of the Doctor’s hearts ached. If she ever found who had wounded this child's soul, the things she would do to them would make her war reincarnation seem merciful by comparison.

Jack reentered the room carrying a bottle of something red.  

“She isn’t our Doctor,” said Sept with far too much seriousness for such a small human. “She doesn’t have curly whirlies but she has Jelly Babies, so I think she’s okay.”

“She is,” Jack told her as he took the baby back from Missy so he could give her the bottle. “She’s one of the people you can always trust no matter what regeneration you meet, just like with your moms and aunts.”

The child frowned, her small face turning down but she accepted his statement as fact.

Then she pointed at Missy. “What about her?”

“You shouldn’t trust me now poppet but if you ever meet a man named the Master, especially if he has blond hair, then you really should run as fast as you can.”

The child gave her a deeply solemn nod.

A thought struck Yaz. “Are any of you hungry. We’ve got a picnic out there if nothing has stolen it.

 

When they went back outside they found that marmots had in fact stolen some of the food. She and Yaz darted back into the TARDIS to bring out more, even if it mostly consisted of chips and microwaved mac and cheese, Shiva at least was thrilled.

“So why exactly are you watching all of my grandbabies?” asked the Doctor through a mouthful of Jelly Babies, she had decided to just eat those for lunch now that she’d remembered she had some. She was happily feeding about half of them to Margaret, who was curled up in her lap again. Sugar was very good for growing Time Lords.

“Shiva and her sisters asked me to. They needed a full time nanny. Sometimes saving the universe can be a bit too dangerous to bring babies along and someone has to stay on the TARDIS and watch them. None of their wives or partners are really the stay home with the kids sorts.”

“Your happy doing that?” asked Yaz curiously. Although she had now met her biological father several times she still didn’t have a very good sense of him.

Jack shrugged, “Yea, it’s been a nice break from my usual life and it’s not like I’m trapped on the TARDIS or anything. When I get restless, one of the Pleiades or their partner stays to watch the kids and I get to go save the day with a bunch of beautiful women. I’ve had much worse gigs.”

“You tried to escape constantly when I had you watching Shiva.”

“Only after she was big enough to not need me anymore. Also for the record you did kidnap me,” said Jack.

The Doctor could tell that conversation wasn’t going to go well so she quickly redirected it.

“So who’s Eve?” She asked Jack.

“Jenny’s partner. She’s a cloned super soldier from the end of the Great and Bountiful human empire. They found her dying on a future battlefield and were able to save her. She traveled with them for a bit and Jenny and her ended up getting together.”

“And Sept?”

“They came across a creche of soldiers from the same clone line as Eve that had been attacked by daleks. Sept was the only child that survived, probably because she managed to hid in the air ducts. They couldn’t take her back to the earth military, her PTSD was so bad they would have euthanized her. So Jenny and Eve adopted her.”

Anger, sorrow and so many other things warred inside of the Doctor. It wasn’t like Daleks killing children was some kind of surprise, any more than what Sept's own people would have done to her. There would always be humans who treated each other as expendable when they thought they could get away with it.

No wonder the girl was fearful if she’d been raised as a child soldier and then witness everyone she knew murdered by daleks. Even sitting beside Jack on the picnic blanket, she kept a constant watch for any kind of trouble.  

Missy considered the child. She’d gotten her hands on the baby again and had her comfortably settled in her arms.

“You said you were of the Gamma Zeta clone line correct?”

The little girl nodded.

“That’s a very formidable line, very hard to kill. I speak from personal experience. You’ll be rather deadly once you get a bit bigger. I’ll make you a bargain child. Swear to me that you will defend this child with your life and I will swear to come to your assistance if you ever require it."

“Swear the same for my mothers.”

“Agreed.”

“Then I swear.”  

Missy adjusted the baby and held out her hand. They shook on it.

Yaz was mildly gobsmacked while no one else seemed particularly troubled. “Did you just make a mutual defense agreement with a five year old?”

“Yes, best time to.”

Shiva for her part had spent most of the meal just staring at the baby with an odd mix of fascination and trepidation. The Doctor noticed.

“You okay sweetheart?”

“Does this mean that I have to someday be a mom now no matter what?” What if I don’t want to ever sire a baby?”

Missy and the Doctor traded a look.

“Apparently you do. Don’t overthink it,” said Missy. “Fretting over fate and such is terribly dull.”

“But I don’t even like babies. They are noisy and smelly.”

The Doctor offered slightly better comfort. “The you that you are now isn’t the same you that will be a mother someday in the future. Time and experience make all of us slightly different people than the one we were the day before.”

She scowled, “it still feels like my choices are being made for me.”

“I know the feeling, my past self once hated my future self so much he tried to kill me,” said Missy.

“Think of it more like getting a peek into the future. Sometimes it is fun but it is not always a good thing. My last wife always called glimpses into the future spoilers," added the Doctor.

“What if I want to change it though? Like what if I never take out my rut suppressant?”  

“I’m pretty sure your future self and wives deliberately made Carmilla with Savian egg splicing tech or something, even if Mina still carried her. You always call her your magic science baby,” said Jack.

Shiva considered this. The Doctor helpfully offered her the last of the Jelly Babies and she took them.

“I don’t like it but I’m not going to worry about it yet.”

Jack’s wrist buzzed and her raised it to his ear to listen for a moment. “Alright girls, your moms are done playing hero and need a pickup. Let’s get moving.”

Sept stood up quickly. The Doctor kissed Margaret on the forehead before surrendering her back. Missy seemed even more reluctant to surrender her newly acquainted grandbaby, at least until the baby chose that moment to spit up something red and mildly horrifying on her coat.

“Right, she’s doing biological things, take her back at once.”

Jack gave Shiva a quick hug. When he looked at Yaz there was uncertainty in his kind blue eyes. He and Yaz still barely knew each other, at least this Yaz did. It occurred to Yaz that she and he might not be at a hugging stage by the point she reached where he was in his timeline now. Then again maybe they never did.

He saw her hesitancy. “Take care Yaz.”

“Yea, you too.”

Then he gathered up the children and stepped back into the older green TARDIS and was gone in an instant. Shiva’s TARDIS had always been as silent as it had been when it had been her birth mother’s.

  



End file.
